Dr Dilantha Gunawardana is a molecular biologist, who graduated from the University of Melbourne. He moonlights as a poet. Dilantha wrote his first poem at the ripe age of 32 and now has more than 1700 poems on his blog. His poems have been accepted/published in Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry and Ravens Perch, among others. He was also awarded the prize for "The emerging writer of the year - 2016" in the Godage National Literary Awards, Sri Lanka for his first collection of poems (Kite Dreams – A Sarasavi Publication), while being shortlisted for the poetry prize. Dilantha is a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and Australia, and shares his experiences from two different cultures. He blogs at - https://meandererworld. wordpress.com/

The Black Man in White Shorts

I’m just a black man in southern Georgia
As dark as the Coca Cola bottle
Or as the corvids ruling a wasteland
I’m a contrast on my own right that few ever understand
Like the white shorts I’m wearing right now.

I’m black power, the zealot in me shouts
A livid doppelganger of me next to Malcom X.
I’m like George Washington Carver
The scientist lurks about through the underground
Tunnels of peanut pegs.
I’m like Lebron James, a power forward
That searches for a Black Jesus
After every dunk. I’m only as smooth and sweltering
As Denzil Washington’s smile.

I’m everything black; the coffee you cannot resist
Or the chocolate you cannot unthaw inside your salivated mouth
Or the pepper that garnishes the stuffed ravioli
Made from garden spinach.

How beautiful is it to be so dark, almost like midnight,
Not even a street lamp can light me up,
As I stare at the détente of color
Unbuckling from the harrowing gallows
Of the white man’s plague
Knowing that the fairness of justice is the only way
Tomorrow’s dawn can ever heal my guard,
Or breach my fort, like the first basketball
Gifted to a young Negro child,

From where expression takes off
– with looping wings

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meandererworld (Dilantha Gunawardana)

Dr Dilantha Gunawardana is a molecular biologist, who graduated from the University of Melbourne. He moonlights as a poet. Dilantha wrote his first poem at the ripe age of 32 and now has more than 1700 poems on his blog. His poems have been accepted/published in Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry and Ravens Perch, among others. He was also awarded the prize for "The emerging writer of the year - 2016" in the Godage National Literary Awards, Sri Lanka for his first collection of poems (Kite Dreams – A Sarasavi Publication), while being shortlisted for the poetry prize. Dilantha is a dual citizen of Sri Lanka and Australia, and shares his experiences from two different cultures. He blogs at - https://meandererworld. wordpress.com/
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